


The Dead Husbands Club

by makokitten



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, M/M, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-27
Updated: 2013-03-27
Packaged: 2017-12-06 17:16:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/738141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makokitten/pseuds/makokitten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you're trying to get back into the swing of dating, it helps to have something to talk about.  Like your dead husband.  Or, in John Watson's case, sort-of husband.  It's complicated.  Good thing Mary Morstan understands complicated better than most people.  Oneshot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dead Husbands Club

**Author's Note:**

> Based a bit on [Texts from John and Sherlock](textsfromjohnandsherlock.tumblr.com), but can easily be read without familiarity with that fanfic - just know that Mary has a young son, and her husband was killed a few months prior. A couple of months after "The Reichenbach Fall."

* * *

            “Thanks for meeting me here,” Mary says.

            “No problem.”  John pulls out the chair across from her and shrugs out of his jacket.  “Sorry I’m late.  Vic’s not with you?”

            “No, he’s home with a sitter,” Mary replies.  She already has a cup of coffee, but it’s barely touched and still steaming.  She hasn’t been here long.  No, stop doing that.  “Girl from the neighborhood.  He adores her.  They’re probably playing with model trains as we speak.”

            “That’s good,” says John, rubbing his hands together to warm them up.  “I got held up by my landlady, actually.”

            “Oh?”

            “Yeah, she reprimanded me for going on a date ‘so soon.’”

            Mary, who’d been about to take another sip of coffee, sets the cup down on its saucer and beings to protest, “Oh, no, I didn’t mean—this is just—”

            “I know you didn’t, I know,” John says.  “Just—remember how I told you that Sherlock sort of tended to rub off on people, sometimes?”

            She nods.  “Yeah, you said something like that in your emails.”

            “Right, well, apparently I’m out in my ‘date shoes’ today, so she got a bit confused.”

            Mary glances quickly under the table.  “Those are your date shoes?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.

            “That’s what I’m told.”

            “They don’t really look like much.”

            “Oh, God, I do know,” John says, smiling in a way that doesn’t feel at all forced—and, surprisingly enough, isn’t.  “You should talk to my ex-girlfriends.  Anyway, I only got away by assuring her I wasn’t going on a date, I was going to a club meeting.  Trying to meet some new people, you know.”

            Mary looks around the café.  “ _Are_ you going to a club meeting?”

            “Yeah, um.”  John tugs at his collar.  “The, uh, ‘The Dead Husbands Club.’”

            She snaps back to him, but she’s confused, not offended.  In fact, there’s concern there, in her face, as if she can’t tell whether he’s making a joke or just lost touch with reality.  “I thought you and Sherlock weren’t…”

            “We were a bit married,” John says, “if I’m being completely honest about it.”

            Mary nods, and only then does she allow her lips to curl up a little, but she disguises the smile by drinking down a little more coffee.  He’s relieved the quip went over well at all.  It’s only been a couple of months since her husband’s murder.  “So, the Dead Husbands Club,” she says.  “What do we do in the Dead Husbands Club?”

            “I was thinking something like a book club,” says John, leaning back in his chair.  “Although we can only read books where someone’s husband dies or is dead, or maybe where someone _thinks_ their husband is dead.”

            “I feel like you’ve still got most of the canon of Western literature in there,” Mary points out.

            “Yeah, well, no one’s going to accuse us of slacking, are they?  I mean, our husbands are dead and all that.”

            Mary smiles with her whole mouth this time.  Her teeth are very white.  John is struck again by how pretty she is, how strange that she was happy to settle for someone who didn’t love her all the way when she probably had more options than she knew.  “That’s a good point,” she says.  “What else do we do?  Drink tea?”

            “Of course we drink tea.  We are British, after all.  You could even bring us free tea, you have a whole shop full.”  John folds his hands together, thinking.  “And we do other widow-y things, like…”

            “Crochet?”

            “Yes, absolutely.”

            “If you don’t leave each meeting with a new doily you’re not doing it right.”

            “Precisely.  You’re a natural.”

            Pause.  “I’m rubbish at crochet.”

            “Me, too,” John admits.

            They smile at each other.

            “You know,” Mary says slowly, “if you just say it out loud, it sounds like it might be a club made up of dead husbands, not a club for people who have dead husbands.”

            “Well, the whole thing’s riddled with issues,” John replies, unclasping his hands and drumming his fingers against the round wooden table.  “I mean, can you even have a club of two people?  Will we have to recruit?”

            “I hope not.” Mary shudders.  “I feel like it’s the sort of thing that can start feeling overcrowded very quickly.”

            “True.  And I’m not sure everyone will understand our brand of humor.”

            Mary leans her head on her hand and stirs her coffee with her spoon, watching him with her very large eyes.  “How often do we meet?” she asks.

            “Once a week?  Once every two weeks?”

            “I can do once a week Sunday afternoons,” says Mary.

            “Perfect.  You have to pick the first book out, though.”

            “I don’t know how I’ll ever stand the pressure.”  She pauses.  “On one condition, though.  You have to wear your date shoes next time, too.”

            “Oh,” says John, because that’s all he can think to say.

            “Sorry, was that too—”

            “No, no.”

             “Really?”

            “Yeah.”  John, who had been staring at her, clears his throat.  “But if we’re establishing a dress code, I’d like to see you wearing something not so black.”

            Her cheeks color.  “It’s a deal, then.”

            “Good, yes.  Great.”  He peers around the café.  “Has your waitress come back yet?  I’m starving.”


End file.
